88 Fun Facts About Horse Racing

By what margin did Secretariat win the 1973 Belmont Stakes in a record 2:24?

31 lengths broke the 25-length record Count Fleet had set in 1943, and Secretariat's rival Sham, who went with his fierce early pace, tired and faded.

Which Louisville track, topped by twin spires since 1895, has hosted the Kentucky Derby since 1875?

Churchill Downs is named for John and Henry Churchill, who leased the land to their nephew Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., grandson of the explorer William Clark.

Which Grand National fence is named for a captain unseated there in the first official race of 1839?

Becher's Brook is jumped twice, as the 6th and 22nd fence, and Captain Martin Becher lay in its water after his fall until the rest of the field had jumped over him.

Which three-time Grand National winner, trained on Southport sands, is buried at Aintree's winning post?

Red Rum won in 1973, 1974 and 1977 and was runner-up in the two years between, and his name is simply the last three letters of his dam, Mared, and his sire, Quorum.

Which New Zealand-born 1930 Melbourne Cup winner has his hide, skeleton and heart in three museums?

Phar Lap's heart is in Canberra, his hide in Melbourne and his skeleton in Wellington, and 'a heart as big as Phar Lap' became an Australian phrase for great courage.

Which Henry Cecil-trained colt retired unbeaten in 14 races with a record Timeform rating of 147?

Frankel was named after the late American trainer Bobby Frankel, and he was rated the best racehorse in the world from May 2011 until the day he retired.

Which jockey's seven winners from seven rides at Ascot in 1996 cost bookmakers an estimated £40 million?

Frankie Dettori's 'Magnificent Seven' came at combined odds of 25,095-1, and the flying dismount he celebrates with was taught to him in California by Angel Cordero Jr.

Which suffragette died after stepping in front of the King's horse Anmer at the 1913 Epsom Derby?

Emily Davison was carrying a ticket to a suffragette dance that evening and a diary of appointments for the following week, which suggests she never intended to die under the horse.

Which record ten-length 1981 Epsom Derby winner was stolen by an armed gang in 1983 and never found?

Shergar's captors demanded a £2 million ransom in a plot a former IRA member later attributed to the organisation, and his remains are thought to lie near Ballinamore in County Leitrim.

Which Paris racecourse stages the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe each October?

Longchamp sits in the Bois de Boulogne, and while it was closed for rebuilding the 2016 and 2017 Arcs were run at Chantilly instead.

Which racecourse, opened in 2010 with a grandstand holding 60,000, hosts the Dubai World Cup?

Meydan replaced Nad Al Sheba, and its synthetic Tapeta track was torn up for dirt before the 2015 race after US trainers stayed away.

Which chaser won three straight Cheltenham Gold Cups from 1964 and holds a record Timeform rating of 212?

Arkle's 212 is the highest mark Timeform has ever given a steeplechaser, and fan mail addressed to nothing more than his name and his country still reached his yard.

Which California track, opened in 1938 under Jack L. Warner, hosted the first Breeders' Cup in 1984?

Hollywood Park ran its last race in December 2013 after 75 years, and SoFi Stadium, home of the NFL's Rams and Chargers, now stands on the site.

Which bet, coined in the 1970s, pays only if you name the first three finishers in exact order?

The trifecta fuses 'tri-' with the perfecta, a bet on the first two in order whose own name was clipped from the Spanish 'quiniela perfecta'.

Which monarch founded Ascot in 1711 on open heath spotted while out riding from Windsor Castle?

Queen Anne judged the heath 'ideal for horses to gallop at full stretch', and the Royal Meeting each June opens with the Queen Anne Stakes.

Which mare won three straight Melbourne Cups from 2003, the only horse to win the race more than twice?

Makybe Diva honours Maureen, Kylie, Belinda, Diane and Vanessa, who worked for her owner Tony Santic, and she was bred in Britain before being trained in Australia.

Which 100/1 shot won the 1967 Grand National after a pile-up at the 23rd fence, now named after him?

Foinavon's jockey John Buckingham had never ridden in the race before, and neither the owner nor the trainer bothered to attend, the trainer having gone to ride at Worcester instead.

Which Queen Mother-owned horse collapsed yards from the post while leading the 1956 Grand National?

Devon Loch was ridden by Dick Francis, who went on to write more than 40 bestselling thrillers, and 'to do a Devon Loch' is still shorthand for a collapse on the brink of victory.

Which jockey, diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1979, won the 1981 Grand National on Aldaniti?

Bob Champion's recovery and win became the 1984 film Champions, with John Hurt in the lead, and the Bob Champion Cancer Trust he founded in 1983 has raised millions for research.

On which day is the Melbourne Cup, a public holiday across much of Victoria, always run?

The first Tuesday in November sees the race start at 3 pm, when the country pauses for the 3,200-metre handicap billed as 'the race that stops a nation'.

Which Thoroughbred foundation stallion was ridden by his captain-owner at the 1690 Battle of the Boyne?

The Byerley Turk was Captain Robert Byerley's war horse in King William's campaign of 1689-90, and his male line survives today through the 18th-century leading sire Herod.

Which unbeaten 1760s racehorse, winner of all 18 of his starts, tops most Thoroughbred pedigrees?

Eclipse so outclassed his rivals that 'Eclipse first, the rest nowhere' became a byword for dominance, and his skeleton is kept at the Royal Veterinary College.

Which Australian mare retired unbeaten in 25 starts, including a 2012 Royal Ascot win by a head?

Black Caviar's jockey Luke Nolen eased up too early at Ascot and barely held on, later admitting it was 'an error that every apprentice is taught not to do'.

A blanket of which flower is draped over the Kentucky Derby winner, giving the race its nickname?

Roses earned the race its 'Run for the Roses' tag, and the blanket goes each year to a winner that, being a three-year-old, gets only one shot at it.

Which jockey, with 8,833 career wins, became the oldest Kentucky Derby winner at 54 aboard Ferdinand?

Bill Shoemaker was so small at birth that, family legend says, he was kept alive in a shoebox by the stove, yet his win total stood as a world record when he retired.

Which jockey is the only rider of two US Triple Crown winners, Whirlaway and Citation?

Eddie Arcaro also won the Kentucky Derby five times, a record later equalled, and fellow riders simply called him 'the Master' for setting the standard in race riding.

Which jockey, Triple Crown winner on Affirmed at 18, moved to Britain and twice won the Epsom Derby?

Steve Cauthen became the first jockey to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Epsom Derby, taking the latter on Slip Anchor in 1985 and Reference Point in 1987, and topped the British jockeys' table three times.

Which jockey, nicknamed 'the Long Fellow' for his height, won the Epsom Derby a record nine times?

Lester Piggott was tall for a flat jockey, served 366 days in prison for tax fraud, and came back at 54 to win the Breeders' Cup Mile within two weeks of his return.

Which jump jockey, top rider in all 20 of his seasons, was the first jockey named BBC Sports Personality?

Tony McCoy rode a record 4,358 winners, topped the table in every season he rode as a professional, and needed 15 attempts to win the Grand National, on Don't Push It in 2010.

Which city's Happy Valley racecourse, first built in 1845, holds its meetings on Wednesday nights?

Hong Kong's Happy Valley, one of two tracks run by the Hong Kong Jockey Club alongside Sha Tin, saw at least 590 people die in 1918 when a collapsing stand set fire to bamboo matting.

Which Italian city's twice-yearly Palio is ridden bareback for three laps of its main piazza?

Siena's Palio pits ten of the city's seventeen contrade, or wards, against each other on 2 July and 16 August, and a horse that loses its rider can still win the race.

Which mare won the 1878 Goodwood Cup on her way to retiring unbeaten after 54 races?

Kincsem means 'my treasure' in Hungarian, and her 54 wins from 54 starts between 1876 and 1879 give her the longest unbeaten record of any racehorse.

Which colt, beaten only once in 21 starts, lost at Saratoga in 1919 to a rival aptly named Upset?

Man o' War never ran in the Kentucky Derby because his owner thought the distance too far so early in a colt's career, and the idea that the race coined 'upset' for a shock result is a myth; the word was decades old.

On which date do all Northern Hemisphere Thoroughbreds officially age a year, whatever their real birthday?

1 January is the shared birthday in the north, while Southern Hemisphere Thoroughbreds all turn a year older on 1 August, so a foal born in late December is officially a yearling days later.

Which racing measure began as the distance a plough cut across a medieval common field in one pass?

Furlong is Old English for 'furrow long', and it became an eighth of a mile because it was used to translate the Roman stadium, an eighth of a Roman mile.

Which American breed, the world's most registered, can outrun any other over a short sprint?

The Quarter Horse is named for its speed over a quarter of a mile or less, and the American Quarter Horse Association had almost three million living horses registered in 2014.

Which bourbon cocktail is the Kentucky Derby's traditional drink?

The mint julep has been promoted with the Derby since 1938, and since 2006 the track has also sold a $1,000 version of it, made with Woodford Reserve, in a gold-plated cup with a silver straw.

Which songwriter's 'My Old Kentucky Home' has accompanied the Kentucky Derby post parade since the 1930s?

Stephen Foster published the ballad in 1853, and Kentucky later made it the state song, replacing a racial slur in the lyric with 'people' in 1986 after visiting Japanese students sang the original to the legislature.

The Kentucky Derby was founded by a grandson of which explorer, co-leader of an 1804 expedition to the Pacific?

William Clark's grandson, Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., launched the race after travelling to England and visiting Epsom, home of the original Derby.

Which kind of horse race is said to have begun with a 1752 cross-country wager between two riders in County Cork?

Steeplechase racing is said to have begun with a 1752 wager in County Cork, when two riders raced four miles from the church in Buttevant to the one in Doneraile.

Which actor played Red Pollard, the jockey blind in one eye, in the 2003 racing film Seabiscuit?

Tobey Maguire's Pollard loses the sight in one eye in amateur fights and keeps it secret, until a rival he never sees coming beats him by a nose in a big race.

Which future star played Velvet Brown, who rides The Pie in the Grand National, in the 1944 film National Velvet?

Elizabeth Taylor's Velvet passes the post first, then loses the race when officials tending to her discover that the winning jockey is a girl.

Which American classic race at Pimlico drapes its winner in a blanket styled after Maryland's black-eyed Susans?

Preakness Stakes winners really wear yellow flowers daubed with black lacquer to mimic the state flower. The winning owner's colours are also painted onto Pimlico's weather vane.

Which light two-wheeled cart, also nicknamed a bike or spider, carries the driver in harness racing?

Sulky drivers are never called jockeys, and the Standardbreds they steer are named for a standard: early horses had to cover a mile in 2 minutes 30 seconds to enter the stud book.

Which Irish jockey became the first woman to win the Grand National, riding Minella Times in 2021?

Rachael Blackmore ended a 182-year wait for a female winner of the race, and a year later became the first woman to ride the winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup as well.

Which king became the only reigning monarch to ride an English race winner, taking the Town Plate in 1671?

Charles II founded the Town Plate himself a few years earlier. His favourite racehorse, Old Rowley, gave its name to the Rowley Mile, the course that stages the 2000 Guineas.

Which term do American racegoers use for a jockey's jacket and cap in the owner's registered colours?

Silks were once always cut from real silk, chosen because the fabric weighs so little. Modern ones are synthetic, and the custom of riding in an owner's colours began in Britain.

Which colt, bought at auction for just $17,500, became in 1977 the first to sweep the Triple Crown unbeaten?

Seattle Slew's buyers had set themselves a budget of only $12,000 before stretching to $17,500. He finished the series with nine wins from nine starts.

Which 2018 Kentucky Derby winner was the first since Apollo in 1882 to take the race without running at age two?

Justify broke the so-called Curse of Apollo, which had stood for 136 years, and went on to become the thirteenth winner of the American Triple Crown.

In horse racing, which term for a horse yet to win also names the entry-level races such runners contest?

Maiden status is judged separately on the flat and over jumps, so a horse with several wins over fences can drop back in and run as a non-winner on the flat.

Which 2006 Kentucky Derby winner shattered a hind leg in his next race, starting a long public fight to save him?

Barbaro had a steel plate and 27 screws fitted to the leg and became the object of public affection across America, but vets could not save him and he was put down in 2007.

Which mare won 19 of her 20 races, becoming in 2009 the first female to win the Breeders' Cup Classic?

Zenyatta was named after an album by the Police, the band her owner Jerry Moss had signed to A&M Records, and crowds loved the dance moves she made before her races.

Which former jump jockey, once rider to the Queen Mother, went on to write more than forty bestselling racing thrillers?

Dick Francis took his plots from the saddle: a riding career of broken bones and damaged organs was handed on to his heroes, who suffer the same injuries.

Which Kentucky city, home to Keeneland and the Red Mile harness track, is known as the Horse Capital of the World?

Lexington owes the title to the hundreds of horse farms that surround it, and Keeneland doubles as the world's largest Thoroughbred auction house.

Which racehorse became a folk hero by losing all 100 of his races yet once outran a minor league ballplayer?

Zippy Chippy beat outfielder Darnell McDonald over 50 yards in 2001, a year after losing a 40-yard dash to another player. His 100th defeat came at the Northampton Fair in 2004.

Which Suffolk town, home to the Jockey Club since 1752, is known as the headquarters of British flat racing?

Newmarket's horses train on heathland owned and managed by the Jockey Club, and the town also houses the National Stud and the National Horseracing Museum.

Which Australian jockey became the first woman to win the Melbourne Cup, on 100–1 shot Prince of Penzance in 2015?

Michelle Payne's mount had cost only $50,000, and her win was retold in the 2019 film Ride Like a Girl, with Teresa Palmer in the saddle and Sam Neill as her father.

Which type of horse race, the Melbourne Cup among them, makes better horses carry more weight to level the field?

Handicap weights are made up with lead, carried in pockets in the saddle pad to top up the jockey and saddle. The load a horse is set is known as its impost.

Which Melbourne racecourse, beside the Maribyrnong River, has staged the Melbourne Cup since the first running in 1861?

Flemington's river flats were first raced on in March 1840, two decades before the Cup existed, and the course joined Australia's National Heritage List in 2006.

Which mare won her final 33 races in a row, among them four straight runnings of Australia's Cox Plate from 2015?

Winx kept the streak going from May 2015 until she retired in April 2019, winning over distances from 1,300 to 2,200 metres and taking 25 races at the top Group 1 level.

On which holiday is the King George VI Chase, a highlight of the British jumps season, traditionally run at Kempton?

Boxing Day only became the race's date in 1947. Kempton had spent the Second World War closed to racing and in use as a prisoner-of-war camp.

Which front-running grey, a hero of British jump racing, won the King George VI Chase four times between 1986 and 1990?

Desert Orchid, known to his fans as Dessie, was loved for his attacking style and iron will. His first win on a left-handed track did not come until 1988, at Aintree.

Which colt, winless before the 1919 Kentucky Derby, went on to become the first winner of the American Triple Crown?

Sir Barton is cast by legend as a mere pacemaker in that Derby for his stablemate Billy Kelly, though he was in fact regarded as the likelier winner of the two.

Which racing stable, led by Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed, is named after a founding stallion of the Thoroughbred breed?

Godolphin honours the Godolphin Arabian, one of the three stallions behind the breed. The ruling family's breeding arm, Darley, takes its name from another of the three.

Which term describes a horse race finish so close that the judge cannot separate the leaders, even from the photo?

Dead heat verdicts have grown rarer as cameras and timers have sharpened, and a tie between three runners was always exceptionally scarce.

Which jockey became the first woman to win a US Triple Crown race, taking the 1993 Belmont Stakes on Colonial Affair?

Julie Krone added more firsts: in 2000 she was the first woman voted into racing's Hall of Fame, and in 2003 the first to ride the winner of a Breeders' Cup race.

Which colt, trained in Ireland by Vincent O'Brien, became in 1970 the first in 35 years to win the English Triple Crown?

Nijinsky was named after the ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky, a choice made by his owner's wife. His trainer ranked him first, for brilliance, among all the horses he handled.

Which term for a horse aged between one and two names the famous September sale held each year at Keeneland?

Yearling prices at Keeneland usually run to five or six figures and sometimes reach the millions, although most horses of that age are too young even to be ridden.

Which County Kildare racecourse, set on a broad open plain, stages all five Irish Classics?

The Curragh saw its first recorded race in 1727 and its first Irish Derby in 1866. Two years after that, an act of parliament declared the plain a racing and training ground.

Which small horse, owned by Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary's stud, won the Grand National in both 2018 and 2019?

Tiger Roll stands only 15.2 hands, small for a racehorse, and also won five times at the Cheltenham Festival, the first of them in a hurdle race for four-year-olds.

Which colt, the first Canadian-bred winner of the Kentucky Derby, set a race record of two minutes flat in 1964?

Northern Dancer's record stood until Secretariat broke it nine years later, and he grew so prized as a stallion that a single season of his services fetched $1 million at auction.

Which race, first run at Doncaster in 1776, is the oldest of Britain's five Classics?

St Leger was the surname of the army officer who devised the race, Anthony St Leger. The title was settled two years on, at a dinner party in a Doncaster inn.

Which betting system, invented in 1867 by showman Joseph Oller, pools all stakes and shares them among the winners?

Pari-mutuel pools demanded so much arithmetic that an Australian engineer built a calculating machine for them, the totalisator, which is why some countries call the system the tote.

Which trainer became the first woman to saddle a Grand National winner when Corbiere won in 1983?

Jenny Pitman took the race a second time with Royal Athlete in 1995, then swapped the stable yard for a new career as a novelist.

Which American horse won 16 races in a row in the 1990s, including the first running of the Dubai World Cup?

Cigar was named after a point on pilots' charts, not the smoke. His owner, an aviation tycoon, gave many of his horses the five-letter names of navigational intersections.

Which piece of horse racing headgear, also called winkers, stops a runner seeing what is beside or behind it?

Blinkers are common in ridden and harness racing alike yet rare in everyday riding: they leave a horse a clear view forward and nothing else to look at.

Which sign language of British racecourse bookmakers, traditionally made in white gloves, passed on changing odds?

Tic-tac was claimed as an 1888 invention by two bookmaking brothers. Signals differed by region: odds of 6/4 meant touching an ear in the south but an elbow in the north.

Which term for a castrated horse names a group barred from most European Classics and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe?

Gelding a racehorse makes him calmer and easier to train, a trade worth making when a colt is too distracted by other horses to run to his full potential.

Which chaser is the only horse to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National in the same year, 1934?

Golden Miller also won the Gold Cup five years running from 1932. Owner Dorothy Paget had paid £6,000 for him, though his sire stood at stud for a mere five guineas.

Which jockey, the first ever to be knighted, won the Epsom Derby on Pinza at his final attempt in 1953?

Gordon Richards joked that he had never dreamed of ending up as the shortest knight of the year. He had finished top of the jockeys' table 26 times.

Which American jockey, who brought the forward crouch to England in 1897, inspired a Cockney phrase for being alone?

Tod Sloan became rhyming slang for own, so a Londoner by himself is on his tod. He was also the model for the Yankee Doodle hero of a George M. Cohan musical.

Which Black jockey won three Kentucky Derbys between 1884 and 1891 and entered racing's Hall of Fame in its first class?

Isaac Murphy became one of the highest-paid athletes in America. His last Derby winner, Kingman, was the first horse co-owned by an African American to take the race.

Which horse passed the post first in the void 1993 Grand National, run despite a false start most riders missed?

Esha Ness covered the course in what would have been the race's second-fastest time, but 30 of the 39 runners had carried on after a recall and the result was struck out.

Which colt finished a close second to Affirmed in all three races of the 1978 Triple Crown?

Alydar narrowed the gap every time, and in the Belmont the pair duelled side by side from the far turn to the wire before he went down by a head.

Which Kentucky stable, founded on a baking powder fortune, sent out Triple Crown winners Whirlaway and Citation?

Calumet Farm has produced more Kentucky Derby winners than any other operation. Its famous devil's red and blue colours were sold off to a Brazilian investment group in 1992.

Which racing figure, by legend, lost the coin toss with the Earl of Derby that named Epsom's most famous race?

Sir Charles Bunbury had his consolation when his colt Diomed won the first running. The coin toss is only legend, and he more probably just deferred to his host.

Which Australian trainer, known as the Cups King, won the Melbourne Cup twelve times between 1965 and 2008?

Bart Cummings ran first and second in 1965 with Light Fingers and Ziema, and landed his twelfth Cup fifty years to the day after entering his first runner in the race.

Which filly became the first female winner of the Kentucky Derby in 1915, having arrived at the race unbeaten?

Regret had run only three times before the Derby, which was also her first race of the year. Her owner had bred her himself, at his farm in New Jersey.